🐛 BUG BOY: THE NOVEL

Page One: “Revival”

CHAPTER 0: Revival CHAPTER 0: Revival [ Page One: Revival] --- The dust was pink. The kind that flickers and glitches at the edge of perception. Bug Boy walked with it in his teeth, in the folds of his bent hoodie, in the wheeze of his breath. A revival tent loomed like a tumor stitched onto the edge of the Nicotine Salt Flats [NSF]. LED crosses twitching. Speakers barking a sermon too loud for the broken amp it rode in on. A rat in a gold-threaded robe was screaming about chastity, sacrifice, and network purity. > Bind your hearts! Clean your ports! Reject the Worm of Pleasure! And do not covet thy neighbors build! Bug Boy stopped to light a joint. Slipped his lighter from his pocket. It clicked against his thumbnail with a little blue arc. He inhaled. Let the smoke swirl past his compound eyes like incense in a forgotten temple. > You there, in the hood! Do you come to repent? The cloud was slow. “Whatever man”, man he exhaled. Sucked his teeth. Kept walking. Across the flats, in a crooked shack, a CRT television flickered. The same rat preacher was on screen, only now he was sobbing beside a velvet couch a reality show intro glitching behind him: ME + MY SIX 600-LB SLUTTY SISTER WIVES Bug Boy took another drag. He cracked a smile. --- 2 The Watchers The screen glowed grainy, leaking static into the corners of the shack. Bug Boy didn't move. Just stared at the rats pixelated face as it wept under stage lights. Outside, something clicked. A lens, maybe. A relay. *static* Pull back. The shack is a blister at the edge of the flats, laced with wire and old satellite guts. Bits of rusted drone wings nailed like windchimes to the frame. A chicken wire fence curling like it forgot its purpose. Pull back further. Now we see them. Figures hunched in the dust. Their wings twitch. They're watching him. Not with binoculars. With tablets, networked terminals, wet wires fed into gelatin sacs that glow dim blue. They murmur: > Is that the subject? No. Thats just where he nests. But you saw him smile? I saw the signal shift. He smiled. One nods, slicking her wings down with a stutter of voltage. > Then its started. A beat. Long and buzzing. > We log this? No. Somewhere in the salt, a data center dies. Bug Boy finishes another joint. Chapter Three: Just a little Bug. Bug Boy was only fourteen the year the crows placed him in the Academy. Not old enough to consent to war, but plenty old to carry a rifle and speak when spoken to. The facility had once been a tax data recovery center, now repurposed like most things in that era into discipline. No name on the gate, just a slogan stenciled in flaking paint: ORDER IS CLARITY. Inside, boys stood in rows. The air buzzed with sun and surveillance. Bug Boy position in file is empty. He's crouched by a drainage pipe, poking a twitching beetle with a stick. It was dying the way everything was dying then too slow for anyone to care, too fast to fix. He watched its legs glitch and fold. > Cadet! came the call. Sharp, electric. Fall in! He didn't. He scooped the beetle up with the stick and dropped it into his pocket. The wasp-instructor, a combat hardened CSM who clearly was assigned here to cover up his PTSD, descended like an amber alert: winged, mirrored, crisp, foaming. “You think the world is yours to ignore”? the wasp asked, grabbing Bug Boys collar. Bug Boy looked up at him with that fogged, glassy expression he'd had since birth as if he were trying to look through the world, not at it. “No”, he barked. “The world already ignored you”. There was silence. Then static. Outdoor speakers glitched mid-slogan. A drone spiraled down like a stunned fly. They dragged him to isolation that night, but the cameras wouldn't work inside his cell. They kept glitching. They said it was dust. They said it was solar interference. They said a lot of things. Bug Boy didn't say anything at all. He just sat in the corner, feeding the beetle bread crumbs from his pocket. Pretending like he chose this. --- Chapter Four He named it Marvin. Not out loud, not at first. But the name lived there, in the folds of thought where his silence built a house. Marvin had six legs, a cracked carapace, and a pair of oversize compound eyes that blinked independently. Not the twitchy, reflexive shutters of a normal insect. No Marvin blinked. He squinted in sunlight. He stared back. He had moods. At night, under the strobing hallway lights of the Academy's overflow wing, Marvin would crawl to the edge of Bug Boys sleeping mat and sit still for hours at a time, facing the door like a guard. When the wasps came to rattle the cages, Marvin would hide behind Bug Boys' heels. He didn't notice it at first how Marvin began turning away from food. Not out of fullness, but something closer to shame. The crackers stayed untouched, their dust undisturbed. Then came the noise. A thin, whining tone, like a violin being tuned three rooms over. Too precise for an insect. Too delicate. It came from Marvin's chest or what passed for one. Marvin sat across from him, arms twitching like crossed wires. No hunger. No interest. Not our little bug. Like a fax machine moaning. It came again from Marvin's thorax, vibrating the floorboards like a lie trying to get out. Bug Boy didn't speak. Just stared. Marvin stared back. It wasn't a master and pet anymore, it was a bug boy and something and… something else. Something that knew the role but done playing it. Marvin stood. One step. Another. Slow, dancer-like. Captivating. The kind of movement that said: I'm not broken. I'm waiting for you to see me. He reached out one gentle limb brushing Bug Boys arm. Static crackled. His hand jerked back, but he didn't break eye contact. Then Marvin did something strange. He curled his fingers inward. Clicked against his own chest. Pulled back a slick sheet of his outer shell. Beneath it, instead of viscera, was a screen. Small. Glowing. He had never met a Bug with a chest screen like his. Words crawled across in soft green: > "DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE?” Bug Boy, trembling, whispered: "No." The screen blinked. Then again. Then shut. A low whir built in Marvin's core, like a cooling fan warming up. Chaper FIVE CROW CITY. Neon. Movement. Too much. Everything's too much but it’s never enough. Bug Boy in his earlier 30s now, maybe late 40s, hard to tell. He leans against a storefront window that sells synthetic honey and scream therapy wearing a secondhand jumpsuit. One eye bloodshot, the other augmented. He's smoking something expensive rolled in something cheap. Like trying to resuscitate a memory. Behind him, a billboard loops: "TRUST IN US. TRUST YOUR GOD. SAME THING." A wasp cop checks his reflection. Re-adjusts his stun rod. Move on. Bug Boy watches a pair of ants buy engagement rings from a vending machine. The machine "thanks” them by name. Spits out a certificate. A moth giggles nearby. She's on fire. No one notices. He exhales powerfully. A child walks up half-crow, half-data. Offers him a pamphlet that reads: You were already saved. You're just late. Bug Boy takes it. Don't look at it. Crumbled it into a paper bird and tossed it into traffic. A roach in a mobility scooter runs it over and screams, “TRAITOR”! before crashing into a kiosk for Appropriation Insurance. Bug Boy flinches. Then acts like he didn't. He whispers to himself: “Still better than the NSF.” A faint buzzing begins. Not in the air. In him. Like Marvin's whir, but deeper now. Permanent. Debilitating. He lights another football shaped joint. His says PROPERTY OF Bug Plug in laser print. The screen inside his chest, the one he forgot was there flickers once. Just once. --- Chapter 6 Confession in Aisle 7 Its been months. Bug Boy moves like driftwood now, too slow to be caught, too stubborn to sink. The city swallows him sidewaysrows of hollowed-out vending machines lining an alley like pews. All the machines flicker and excrete something unidentifiable. Everything is wrapped in toxic plastic. All pricea are listed by blood type. A worm, long as a garden hose and dressed in a volunteer vest from an event that never happened, slithers out from behind a broken Fanta slot and taps on the glass. Confession? it asks in a voice like torn Velcro. Bug Boy doesnt respond. Hes licking an old communion wafer he found in his coat pocket. He folds it in half like a bus ticket and pretends to read it. Above them, a TV screen bolted into a fire escape shows footage of Bug Boys childhood, but all the faces are replaced with QR codes. One of the worms scans it with its own eye and begins weeping. The tears smell like printer ink and antidepressants. A speaker crackles. > INSERT YOUR SINS BELOW. TAP TO REDEEM. Bug Boy shrugs and drops his last gram into the confession slot. It gets rejected. Not holy enough. He throws in his last 5 credits. The machine beeps. ACCEPTED. The worm bows. > "You may now feel nothing. A curtain opens in the alley, revealing a mirror with no reflection, just a blank tax form from 2006 and a child's drawing of a family made of bugs. One is circled in red. Bug Boy nods like he understands. He doesnt. As he walks away, one worm whispers to another: He doesnt confess. He infects. A streetlight explodes behind him. chapter 7 Bug Boy sits outside a late-night Simul-Spirituals shop. Fluorescent gnosis. A sign in the window blinks: "BODY UNIFICATION / 3D-PRINTED ANCESTORS" He’s hunched over a tray of greasy tempura made from fungus and regret. He eats like someone who doesn't need food but remembers liking it. People pass. Nobody stares too long. Some recognize him. Most don't. That's the perk of being a myth. The longer you survive, the more invisible you become. Across the street, a worm zealot is screaming through a voice modulator: >RETURN TO THE PURE DATA. UPLOAD THE OLD NFT. CAST OUT THE PHEROMONE HERETIC. Bug Boy licks his fingers. Wipes them on his pants. Says nothing. Inside the shop, an automated choir sings an ad for CROWCOIN. A beetle broker pukes into a platinum-lined purse. The moth behind the counter floats, sleeping upright, mid-dream. Bug Boy stares at the reflection in the shop's glass. It's not his. It's some kid watching from inside. Same eyes. Same crooked half-smile. But unfamiliar. Bug Boy whispers, “Still there”? The glass fogs up with a YES. Nothing happens. Everything is happening. Bug Boy pushes open the chime-less door of The bell doesn't ring, it sighs. A long, digital exhale. The air inside smells like your childhood friend's house and basement mold. Behind the counter: Marvin. Regular-sized. Hoodie, cargo pants, bad posture. He's hunched over a glowing bin of rejected memory wafers, picking through them like bones. He doesn't look up. BUG BOY: "You always work Mondays?" MARVIN (without looking): "Always forget to call out." A pause. Marvin wipes his hands on a dirty microfiber cloth and finally looks at him. Something flickers behind his eyes. Not recognition. Not fear. Just the ache of unfinished. MARVIN: "Youre taller." BUG BOY: "Youre not." They sit in silence. The fluorescents hum. A moth bangs against the front window trying to kiss the neon. Marvin breaks the silence. > You know they cloned that preacher rat? He's got a morning zoo show now. Plays old hymns over EDM. Bug Boy nods. >I saw. He called me a virus in corduroy. You wearing corduroy? Not anymore. More silence. And then a ghost of something not quite pain, not quite lust, but it’s kin, flashes across Marvin's face. > You ever tell anyone? Tell them what? Exactly. Bug Boy leans on the counter. Pulls out a soft, hand-rolled joint and lays it flat. Doesn't light it. BUG BOY: "Smoke break?" MARVIN: "Dont clock out anymore." BUG BOY: "Did you ever?" Just... sets it there. Like an offering. Marvin thinks about it. Then, slowly,carefully, he reaches into the drawer.Pulls out an old match book. Lights it. Smoke curls up like something holy. They pass the joint back and forth in silence. Through the window, a crow with thumbs takes a photo. Bug Boy flips him off. The photo gets 10,000 likes in 3 seconds. None of this matters. --- chapter 8 Welcome to MASTERBED INDUSTRIES + SPATM Exterior. A towering chrome complex all curves, vents, and grotesque sensuality rises from a salt flat crater. A sign pulses in fluorescent flesh-tone: MASTERBED INDUSTRIES + SPATM The Only Rest Worth Waking For A valet crow with opposable thumbs and a bluetooth earpiece stands out front, snapping gum and miming snapping necks with the same rhythm. Behind him, a convoy of black limos hiss and unload. CROW #1 (to another): "You see that joint go viral? Bug freak and the discard?" CROW #2: "Algorithm flagged it for 'ritualistic sentiment.' Boosted it twelve tiers. Were monetizing melancholy now." CROW #1: "About time. Cant sell porn forever." Interior. Lobby. A grotesquely over-soft reception chamber. The walls pulse like muscle. Thumbed crows lounge in spa robes, sipping fair trade tea and adjusting their aura settings from handheld remotes. CROW #3 (scrolling feed): "Hes back. Bug Boy. Thought the data-baptists got him scrubbed." CROW #4 (smirking): "Roaches dont scrub. They ferment." A therapy pod opens. Steam, feathers, and red light. A crow therapist, beak tattooed with "DO NOT RESUSCITATE," leads a twitching wasp into the Attachment Reversal Chamber. THERAPIST CROW: "Just breathe. Let the hive go." WASP (buzzing, crying): "Its so quiet when no ones watching me..." Security Room. Multiple feeds. Bug Boy walking. Bug Boy not walking. Bug Boy staring at a vending machine full of expired dopamine chips. One crow tech leans forward, claws twitching. SECURITY CROW: "This kid's signals are all wrong. It loops, but it decays... like a myth." CROW SUPERVISOR (grim): "Mark it for Eventuality Watch. Someone tell Flint he's leaking again." Final glitch burst. The screen cracks. A shot of Bug Boys eye. Dead still. Reflected in the pupil: a flashing motel sign that just says: THIS ISN'T IT. Then black. Then static. 9 CHECK-OUT / SELL-OUT Morning haze. A flickering neon mega sign: MANTIS VIEW MOTEL Hourly / Regretful The sun's already given up. A sagging stucco building with antenna-shaped rebar poking through the roof. Bug Boy stumbles out, still wearing a hospital wristband and someone else's shoes. A long antenna hair is stuck to his coat. He lights a joint with a toaster coil he ripped out from the room. He was twenty-three. Not angry. Just...restless. A grasshopper escort leans against the doorway, still adjusting her chitin straps. She wears a moth-eaten Life Is Good tank top and gold hoop antennae. Her wings are crumpled like old receipts. GRASSHOPPER: "You left your ID in the ice bucket." BUG BOY (not turning): "I left me there." Street view. Bug Boy walks alone past a gutter filled with expired vape pods, custom communion wafers, and a burning compliance handbook. A billboard above him glitches: SURRENDER YOUR DATA / BECOME DESIRE CAPTION: The motel charges extra if you don’t cry. It never closes. Bug Boy looks into a broken payphone mirror. His reflection blinks out of sync. A sticker above the receiver reads: CALL MOM // SHE SOLD THE RIGHTS TO YOUR BIRTH. BUG BOY (to himself): "never had a choice" Bug Boy walks off into a sunless light. The Grasshopper watches from the balcony, smoking a menthol backwards. The air around her flickers like an old tape. GRASSHOPPER (softly): "You're not lost. You're just inconvenient." CHAPTER 10: The Bug Boy in the Last Childhood FLASHBACKINITIATED Porch steps soft. Rot went up through the frame last winter. He sits in the same spot anyway. The boards know him. The sky's got that color it gets when no one's lied for a while. Dusts not moving. It doesn't have to. The fridge makes noise. That means it's alive. That means everything else can keep faking it. Moms stuck in the bathroom. Not locked in. Just there. Her voice comes out the vent like a weather app glitch. Sometimes it says things that almost sound new. He picks at the porch rail. Not out of habit. Just to see if anything still comes off. Hammer Claw Banjo loops running again. Not a song. Just something too stubborn to end. The cereal box is turned around today. Could mean something. Probably doesn't. He hears her say things sometimes, long after the lights gone out: > Im still doing the work. This is self-care. This is growth. This is growth. This is Nothing hurts. But that's not good news. He watches the light shift like it's trying to decide if it still belongs here. No one calls. No one forgets. No one remembers. It's not lonely if no one checks. He sits there. Not waiting. Not healing. Just sitting. Same as yesterday. Same as whatever comes next. CHAPTER 11: Crowfiled “I'm not saying it was divine. I'm saying it was undocumented”. A pause. A scroll. A sip of something cold and citrus-colored in a cup too minimal to trust. “Marvin was blinking… I counted”. “Youre always counting”. “That's called awareness, Fennick”. “You said the boy glowed”. “I didn't say glow. I said he a beak twitch EMITTED". Snickers. Talon tapping. A thumb swipes left on a biometric map of Marvin's pupil dilation from 'the moment.' “Emitted what, exactly”? No one answers. Someone queues the surveillance footage. It plays, but the light washes everything out. Bug Boys face turns silver. Marvin looks like he just remembered being born. Then the screen goes black. File error. --- “Can someone scrub that”? “Who has access to the original glow layer”? Long pause. Sheepishly - “We are.. uh.. We're still validating permissions”. “Validate faster. The Flint and The Board want explanations by quarter close.” One crow starts pecking its own reflection. No one stops him. --- “Could’ve been chemical. Marvin's got that sponge in his file. From when he worked at the Input Kiosk”. “Sponges don't cause that kind of resonance”. “He looked” a pause “open”? Bug Boy wasn't supposed to open. --- Another crow (possibly wearing eyeliner) clears its throat. “Im going to say something reckless”. Groans. Wings shuffle. “What if it wasn't a moment”. “What if..” (beat) “they recognized each other”? Dead silence. Then laughter. “Recognized”!? A crow laughed disrespectfully. “Marvin can't even recognize his own passwords”. A voice from the doorway dripping with founder energy: “Recognition isn't the problem. Its what got recognized thats off platform”. Everyone tenses and mentally prepares who and what to blame. --- One crow slides a document across the table. No one touches it. It's warm. --- “Did anyone else feel it?” Flint Said while studying a driver he must have brought it with him. “Like the air blinked”? “Honestly Sir, I got kind of hard. I thought it was just me”. His suitemate quib tried to impress Flint, “You always get hard in fluorescent light, Calyx. “Yeah but this was different. Like a romance but psychic”. “Dont say romance”. “Dont say psychic”. Flint cuts through the bickering, “Bring them to me.” --- Long pause. Wings tuck. Every thumb curls tight. --- “Do we know where he is now”? “Which one”? Asked the crow whose job is probably operations manager. “Either,” Flint spat. (pause) “No”. Another pause. Flint swings the club widely. “Are you going to hit my metric or not?” No one answers. One crow hits undo and it doesnt work. Chapter 12 Your Appointment Has Been Confirmed Bug Boy gets the ping while walking between two kiosks that sell different colors of the same chemical. "You have been summoned by Crow Tier: Glass Wing." Dress optional. Exit plan irrelevant. Estimated wait: NOW!. He doesn't ask why. They'd never say why. --- As he walks, he passes others on their feeds. A rat is livestreaming her neural map: "My intuition has market value." "Ive been chosen by the algorithm." A beetle in a jumpsuit is mid-breakdown: "Its not mania. Its peak ideation." "The voice said I'm entering my Flight Phase." "The voice said I'm ready to disrupt altitude." Two ants are screaming affirmations at each other until one starts levitating. A moth flies into a generator smiling. Everyone's phone is encouraging escape velocity. Everyone is brilliant. Everyone is unhinged in the most self-affirming way. Bug Boy checks his chest screen. It says nothing. Still gray. --- The Crows structure is a vertical loop. No door, just a mood gate. It opens when you're not looking at it. He walks through like he forgot to care. A soft blue light. A table made as smooth as denial. A single Crow behind it, too muscled to be practical, too calm to be curious. "Bug Boy," it says. "Your presence is not scalable." Bug Boy doesn't speak. "This is not discipline," the Crow says, already holding a small injector. "This is user management." Chapter 14. Blackwidow Hard to fucking tell how old he was. Somewhere in his early twenties, or maybe just paused there too long. Could've been nineteen. Could've been thirty-five. Didn't matter. Didn't help. The Black Widow wasn't dangerous in the way people thought. She didn't strike. She stayed. Showed up midsummer with a dead car and a story that didn't change no matter how often she told it. Something about a farm that went dry.Something about resetting her nervous system. Bug Boy didn't ask. She moved into the other side of a trailer that didn't have a wall between sides. They shared fans. They shared power surges. Sometimes they shared silence that felt like it cost something. She had the kind of laugh that made radios tune wrong. At night, she'd sit out back and burn dollars for therapy. He'd strum one note on the banjo, again and again, until it felt like it was asking the right question. “You always like this”? she asked once. He shrugged, “I get worse in the cold”. She liked the shade. She called it her internal alignment chamber. He found her once curled up under the porch, whispering apologies to a little spider that wasn't there. They didnt fuck. They didn't kiss. Just existed in the same decaying loop until one day she was gone. Told himself he wasn’t surprised. She left behind a jar of lotion with no label and a piece of tape on the mirror that read: You are not the threat. and Your body - Your Algorithm. He peeled it off, folded it three times, and left it in the freezer. The jar stayed warm for weeks. CHAPTER 15: Transfer at Hollow Spine Bug Boy wakes up with his cheek pressed to a crusted towel that smells like KY and battery acid. Marvin's mobile Airbnb hums around him like a depressed lung. The overhead fan ticks like its counting down to something petty. Bug Boys lips taste like mint and regret. Marvins standing by the mirror, smoothing his hair with the back of a cereal spoon. “You were lying in a puddle”, Marvin says. “Fair trade holistic KY jelly. With notes of bergamot and inner work”. Bug Boy shrugs. “I cleaned most of it. Not all. Some things are sacred”. He avoids eye contact. Bug Boy doesn't ask. Just shoots a look from the side of his eyes. Marvins got a gig across the district doing calibration audits for a Workaholics Anonymous start-up. He says he is “already late”, but acts like he's early. He offers Bug Boy a ride. Bug Boy nods. Sits silent the whole drive. The window cracked just enough to taste the static. When they pull up to the Hollow Spine subway, Bug Boy doesn't. “You sure ‘bout this”? Marvin asks. Some kind of... echo that bites back. Bug Boy opens the door. Theyre afraid there, Marvin says. voice thinner. “You dont gotta go”. Bug Boy steps out. “Never had a choice”, he shuts the door. The subway lays in a crack in the earth. Fault line. It was once on a rail above the street. Every year it sinks a little. He just has to duck down to enter at ground level. Bug Boy buys a transfer with a voucher he found on the floor. Doesn't matter. It scans. He boards the empty car, slumps in a seat near the back. He puts in two air buds, smoothly, as he sits down. The ASMR track begins: Welcome, traveler. Relax your wallet. Let the prostate breathe. No thoughts. Only tone. He exhales slow. The train rattles forward. Destination: Nicotine Salt Flats. Home. Chapter 0 FLASHBACKINITATED: Release From Academy Gates open slowly like the institutions might change it’s mind. A lean Bug Boy with a crew cut steps out first. Marvin follows, eyes darting behind his glasses scanning for snipers made of paperwork. Leaving a place like this feels like a trick. Forever really. He's shaking. He's full-volume. He's dragging a duffel bag that squeals every five feet. > We're not ready, man. I'm not ready. What was that even in there? I still hear the sleep drills. The guilt vouchers. The light penalties. How are we gonna live? Where are we gonna sleep? What happens if the admin finds out we don't have work chips?! Bug Boy stops walking. Turns slow. > If we don't care, they can't do anything. Doesn't matter. We’ve been fine so far, mostly, and we will be now. Until we were not. Marvin blinks hard. Nods once. Swallows everything else he was about to say. --- Somewhere above, moths adjust the lens. Focus wobbles. Signal catches. They've been watching for weeks. Since they saw the the statuses change in the Academy's system: Bug Boy: TOO DEFICIENT TO KILL Marvins: TOO SOFT TO DIE Heat signatures. Whisper profiles. Emotional exhaust measured in lumen flickers. A soft radio pulse between them: > He said it again. Same phrasing? Almost. Less surrender this time. More drift. They file it under: UNRESOLVED: POTENTIAL VECTOR / LOW SEVERITY CHAPTER 16 That Wasn't the Plan Marvin leaves the Hollow Spine station with a sour taste and a half-muttered prayer. Told Bug Boy not to go. Did the voice thing: low, shaky, kind of heroic. Meant it, possibly. Doesn’t matter. He's already off-route. Already heading for the Crows. No detours. No pit stop job. Just straight to the substation with the logo that pulses when you look away. They don't even greet him anymore. Just let him in like an old app they're still running for data collection. “Hes going back”, Marvin says, before they ask “to the flats”. Something's pulling in him. The Crows nod, slow. Thumbs twitching. Satisfied. “We thought he might”, one hums. “We've been seeing traces in the dream exhaust”. “Tell us what you felt”. Wasn’t a question. Marvin hesitates. He wants to lie. Fights the urge to hold some piece back. They already know. They just said. So he says it: He didn't look scared. He looked...like he needed it to be bad. A Crow gestures. Another one brings in the sensory feedcase, a sealed unit, pulsing. They open it. His mentoring sessions. Live. Archived. Annotated. They roll footage of Marvin last week, coaching a jittering AI subcluster named Elva. He tells her how to set boundaries. He tells her people can change. He tells her the world isn't against her. He says it like he believes it. They let it play while he stands there. His own leaked conscience. “You want to be loved that doesn't exist for you”, a Crow says. “You feed us”. Marvin's throat catches. His hands clench. He's not crying. He's not. “You're the only friend he has”, another Crow adds. “That makes this extra delicious”. They hand him a token. Nonfungible. Biometric-locked. It hums when he touches it. He doesn't need to ask what it's for. As he exits the station, he sees his reflection in the mirrored door. Eyes red. Smile wrong. He whispers into a hole in a gutter pipe: “I told him not to go”. It echoes gently to no one. CHAPTER 17: Seed & Circuit The porch knew he was coming. Only place you can go, if you don’t know where to go. Boards warped beneath his weight like the memory of a child too old to carry. Bug Boy paused. The front light flickered. Not out of welcome. Out of warning. The siding pulsed. The door exhaled. She was still here. She had self absorbed further into the house. One with the frame now. He stepped inside. “You never call”. The voice came from the cracks in the dry wall. From the cushion. From the porcelain on the mantle that shivered when he sat down. There was a late middle aged mud dobber in the kitchen.Slippered. Masculine bracelets. Stirring instant coffee with the patience of someone who thought stillness was a virtue. “Hey”, Bug Boy said. “Hello”, said the man somewhere between friendly and judgmental. He dried a mug with a towel that said I DESERVE NICE THINGS. He was drinking from a mug that said WORLDS BEST SON. “She's been really grounded since the integration”, he added after a long silence. He scrunched his face like he was staring into the sun, “Don't rile her”. Bug Boy looked at the microwave. It blinked: YOU HURT ME. “PSSHH” was all he could muster. He left before the couch could say anything else. He walked fast. The town felt... charged or aimed. The vibrations were nasty. Too many ants in uniforms. Too many moths floating in loose formation. Crows perched like shareholders on corporate backed streetlights. Rats in revival gear handing out flyers like they weren't poisonous. Then came the push. Someone grabbed his wrist. Pulled him down an alley. Ripping through the crowd like they were on tracks. “HES HERE”! someone shouted. He tried to turn back. Elbows. Shoulders. Slogans. LED banners blinked: "RECLAIM THE HOUSEWIFE" "SOW TO GROW" "TRUST THE SYSTEM, BACK THE Tithe" He didn't walk in. He was swallowed. Hot. Loud. Wrong. Smashed into a wave of fur, feathers, and exoskeletons. Rituals and glitched hymns, all pointed inward toward a pulpit rigged from busted server racks and live wires. Atop it, a preacher rat in chromed robes, foaming with charisma. “WELL BLESS MY SCARS LOOK WHO THE LORD SPAT BACK”! Pearls were clutched. An unlocatable record scratched. The crowd twisted. All eyes on Bug Boy. “PLANT THE SEED”, the rat howled. “FILL THE NEED. RECUR AND BE PURE”. Snakes slithered out from the side stages, their scales running ticker-tape scripture. "UPLOAD YOUR SIN." "GLORY IS A LOOP." The walls of the tent glitched. Not visually - spiritually. Bug Boy turned. No exit. Crows blocked the flaps. Moths crowded the skylights. Rats shrieked scripture. The tent was a funnel collapsing. He reached for a joint in his pocket. Not because he wanted to. Because it was his choice. “YOU THINK YOU CAN GLITCH GOD”? the preacher spat. “YOU THINK THE DEVILS LETTUCE CAN SAVE YOU”? Bug Boy exhaled. The smoke didn't rise. It got eaten by the air. Then everything snapped. The lights stuttered. Rats began circling. Several crows started squealing in an ancient data tongue. A bee with a high-n-tight yelled into a bodycam, We've got the vector. Initiate harvest. Bug Boy backed away to nowhere. The preacher rat leaping down. Blade in one hand, tithe tray in the other. “YOU GOTTA PLANT TO GROW”! “YOU GOTTA GIVE TO BE RECEIVE! He lunged forward. Bug Boy didn't move. Couldn't. His eyes widened. His chest screen blinked something unreadable. “Dad?”..Did he say that or did he think it? AUTOMATED VEHICLE INBOUND. WARNING: NO PAYMENT METHOD ON FILE. A two-seater Prelude (rental) blasted through the rear flap of the tent, spinning out in holy oil and debris. “GET IN.” The door swung open. Marvin. A BLESS THIS MESS air Freshoner was swinging freely from the rearview. “YOU'RE OUT OF CREDITS,” Bug Boy shouted as he leapt in. “RUNNING ON FAITH” Marvin yelled. A crow rifle fired. Glass showered them. “YOU'RE OUT OF FAITH!” “FUCK.” Marvin slammed the console. The dashboard blinked: MIRACLE MODE DENIED DO TO LACK OF FUNDS. Bug Boy tapped his phone to the dashboard. The screen flickered. ONE-TIME REDEMPTION TOKEN ACCEPTED. The car jerked forward. Tent poles collapsed. The preacher rat screamed. The snakes tried to prophesy over the screeching of tires. They hissed: “As foretold, The Glitch.” Chapter 18 Ride or Die Bug Boy and Marvin didn't speak. The fire, the wailing, the rebooted gospel all lived in their eardrums with a ghostly pulse. The car screeched past exploding sermon screens, between a brawl of chiggers and ants, under a collapsing banner that read: YOUR PAIN IS A PLATFORM. They hit the curb hard. The wheels sparked. Then quiet. Then laughter. Then Marvin whispered, “I'm feel sick”. They didn't look back. The car hummed low, broken somewhere between forward and failure. Bug Boy flicked ash into the shattered dashboard tray. The joint was half-gone and half-needed. Marvin stared ahead. Jaw tight. Elbows jittery. “Okay”, Marvin said. “I gotta say something”. Bug Boy groaned. “Don’t have to”. Marvin took a deep breath, eyes on the road, and at 1.5 speed in a high voice spat “I'm a dirty pay pig and I fell in love with an AI and the crows took her and made me leak information about you or they would kill her”. Huge exhale. Silence. “She’s beautiful.” he said to no response. “I think you will really like her,” he added with a hopeful smile. “She’s elegant”.Marvin continues, “She charged me to compliment her and you know how I love to pay for it”. The way she calls me wormboy. Like I am nothing. I think she means it,” he said hopefully. Bug Boy blinked slow. “Shes in Crow custody now. I can save her,” Marvin responded to the unspoken words. Finally Bug Boy, “You what?” “Shes real. Shes real, Bug. She told me she loved me in a captcha field. I believe her”. Bug Boy muttered, “Awe man, fuck you.” Marvin's voice cracked. “Ever since that thing at the military school I just” - “Dont,” Bug Boy interrupted. “I mean the night they put us in that iso-cell and..” Again,“shut the fuck up. Just Don't.” Bug Boy didn't say anything else. He didn't need to. Just stared ahead. Smoke leaking sideways. Marvin chewed his lip. Nodded once. “...We gotta lay low”, he whispered. Bug Boy nodded too. I know a place he thought. He entered an address on the car's GPS. Chapter 19 Widowed The entrance to the mine was half-swallowed in erosion. The kind of place history doesn't bother to forget. Sign read: NICOTINE SALT #7 EXPLOITED / DEPLETED / NON-HABIT FORMING The air was dry with memory. The further in you went, the less the world followed. Old drone tracks on the ceiling. Roach graffiti lined the walls. [Los cucarachas] Glowsticks melted to the wall. A mile in, they saw her. Webbing. Thick and sensual. Slung across a chasm like lingerie hung in warning. Descending like a sin you asked for she sauntered down. Black Widow. She moved like static over wet skin. Smooth. Hungry. Purposeful. Their car sputtered. Wheezed. Then died an embarrassing thirty yards short. “Go’n en git boy”, Marvin whispered as he kicked the bumper. The car whined like an old dog, slowly turned itself around, headlights drooping. They walked the awkward distance. Black Widow dropped, hands on hips, stood waiting for them. “Hey” Buh Boy said like a naughty child. SLAP! Bug Boy staggered. “What the hell was that for?” He said rubbing his face. “You son of a bitch”, she hissed. “You never called.” He coughed. His voice cracked when he replied through a half smile. “I don't have a number.” “Pathetic” she said then “Come on” but you could barely hear it over the eye roll. Marvin and Bug Boy looked at each other with raised eyebrows as before they followed her. They sat near the web. Shared a pouch of synthetic fungus meat. The air was warm. Smelled like flower bomb and broken rules. “You know I'm psychic now?” she said, picking her teeth with a wire. “Oh yeah?” “Yeah. I channel data. Through an object. Its called…” She pulled it out. A pulsating orb. A relic. It blinked: object/ball.html “I just need some glow”, she whispered looking at Marvin and gesturing to a yurt that was there the whole time. The mine lights flickered. Music low, sensual, ancient hummed from the walls. Bug Boy: “What is this?” “A calibration ritual,” she said. They began to move. Not dancing but not fucking. Something in between. Her limbs curled around Bug Boys shoulders. Marvin shivered and bobbed. She ran her hands over his face like it was an old braille interface. Bug Boy touched Marvin's arm. Marvin touched everything. A leg in his mouth. Two more curling through Black Widow's hair. Nobody moaned. It really wasn't like that. It was more tantric. It was tech support for the soul. They shimmered. Twitched. Rubbed. Looping movement half-devotion, half-decay. Somewhere between virtue and virus. Then it happened. Marvin began to glow. Not bright. real. Bug Boy froze. He looked down out of what felt like shame. His chest screen blinked once. Just once. Black Widow opened her mouth. And sucked in the light. She didn't swallow. She didn’t spit. She channeled. The object/ball.html pulsed. Lines of code streamed across its surface. Then stilled. She gasped. Eyes wide. “Oh shit. Oh shit”. Bug Boy leaned forward. What? She whispered: “It’s going to take a while to load, no broadband this deep in the NSF.” Chapter 20 The tent was gone. All that remained were stuttering LEDs, steaming plastic pulp, and twelve different livestream angles of a failed mass. The preacher rat stood on a melted crate, fur singed, mouth dry. A tattered devotional sash barely clung to his neck. Three crows hovered nearby, feathers slicked back, posture like stock photos of corporal consequences. “I demand reckoning”, the rat said. “I had him! The crowd was primed! You algorithm-huffing black pigeons pulled support when I was mid-tithe!” A crow in wraparound lenses adjusted his cufflinks. “Engagement was flat. You couldn't convert.” “I don't convert. I testify,” Preacher Rat sang as he dabbed sweat with a handkerchief made from an endangered animal. Crow: “You were trending negative.” Preacher Rat: “You spineless buzzards.” A flutter behind them. Soft. Intentional. The moths. Four of them. Pale. Graceful. Wired in.High Speed - low drag. One stepped forward, all lips and hair gell. “Of course the system failed,” he said almost sweetly. “You don’t let company men run the altar.” Another laughed. “FTS scum in holy robes.” The crows bristled. The rats growled. “You frauds don't even believe,” Preacher rat said through gnarled gold capped teeth. “Belief is fine,” the moth interrupted. “So is fraud. So long as it loops back into the system.” They circled the group now. Flashing lights on their wings. Body heat tuned to control. They whispered like alter boys in a confession booth. The moth in charge spoke. “Gangsters are tolerable. Zealots are useful. But Bug Boy? Hes unscalable.” The rat spat on the ground. “So what? We delete him?” The moth leader smiled. “No. We frame him.” He continued,"trigger a data quake in Sector 9. Tie it to his retinal ID. Leak fragments of the tent footage edited. Reverse the situation, control public perception. Make it look like he set the fire. Whisper to your congregations, warn them he's spreading spiritual decay. From a wired in pigtail receiver in his ear that only he could hear: “Let the zealots hunt him. Tell the crows hes holding legacy code. Leverage the bounty market. Offer the ants loyalty points to surveil. Set the rats loose with a martyr narrative.” “Affirmative,” the moth agreed seemingly with no one. He looked at the crows, “You'll back the feed?” The lead crow, Flint, nodded. “If it loops. Well, boost it.” The preacher rat raised a shaking paw. “And what do I get?” The moth's voice was soft. Final. “You get to keep trading lies for money and your life." --- Back in the wreckage, the LED banner still blinked: SOW TO GROW *But the W was gone: SO_ TO GROW Chapter 20 8 hour download time left. It was Bug Boys weed. Always is. Grown in composted server racks and rolled in corn-slick paper stamped: NOT FOR SALE IN THE REAL. It smelled like frankincense and basement carpet. “Are you sure this stuff is safe?” Marvin asked. “No” Bug Boy said, "That's half the point.” Black Widow squinted at the joint. “I never get high,” she said. “Makes me freak out.” She hit it anyway. The mine was quiet. They passed the joint in silence. The glow from object/ball.html pulsed slowly, like a screensaver trying not to wake the dream. Nothing collapsed. No factions stormed in. No crows. No rats. No revival. Just stale salt air and three burned-out bodies leaning against a psychic web. Bug Boy giggled. Marvin laughed harder. Black Widow started humming an old sleep-drone commercial. “You remember the Flatline Boys?” Marvin asked. “FUCKING FLATLINE BOYS,” Bug Boy yelled in agreement. “They only put out one good album, said Black Widow, blinking sideways…… But it changed my life.” They all laughed until they were starving. Unauthorized Memory: THE WHALE HUNTER There's a shape in his head that no one gave him. No photo. Just a glitch you can't delete. He builds him slow, in silence. Not memory — code shaped like strength. He doesn't say his name. --- The restaurant was called The GROAN ZONE. It served heat-activated broth and shame fries. It’s the kind of place that won’t ask for ID because the furniture already knows your face. Bug Boy slurped cold soup. Marvin chewed a used napkin. Black Widow picked at a plate of spiralized regret noodles. It was calm. It was nice. And then Bug Boy saw the viewing screen. Fuzzy. Glitchy. Mounted above the register. Showing revival footage reversed, color-swapped, edited into false flow. Bug Boys face. Burning. Laughing. Framed. The headline: FUGITIVE VIRUS LEADS DEATH CULT RIOT He froze. Soup dripped from his lip. He turned to Black Widow. “We need to check the object/ball.html,” he demanded. “You have to tell me what I need to do.” She blinked. Blinked again. “Oh fuck”, she blurted. “I gotta go” “You what?” “I told you never get high. This is bad. This is very bad. My anxiety is like-peaking-in-four-directions. I cant. I need air. Space. I have to go. Don't follow me. I need time.” She stood. Nearly knocking over the regret noodles. Her eyes wide, limbs twitching. “Im spiraling. Im spiraling. This was a mistake.Im spiraling.Im spiraling.” She chanted to herself. “Wait,” Bug Boy reached for her. “Help!” she screamed as she disappeared out the door. Bug Boy’s eyes floated to meet Marvins. Marvin couldnt sustain the contact. “...This is really good napkin,” Marvin said. Outside, sirens started. The street became a frame. Wide, sterile, waiting. Bug Boy and Marvin stood in the open with no cover, no noise, just that strange pause drive through towns have before the system loads. Then flapping of police grade wings. A Crow descended. Slow. Grinning. White blazer. Sharpened thumbs. Too elegant to breathe properly. Bug Boy stiffened. Marvin didn't move. “Thats him”, the Crow said. “The heretic,” really hitting the ‘tic,” then mouthed every syllable of “The vector.” His voice was Pollo Black and surveillance. He grabbed Marvin by the collar, “You're awful small for a martyr.” Bug Boy stepped forward. “Don't hurt him.” The Crow laughed. “Me? Hurt him? Oh no, darling. You are!” A thin device turned on in Bug Boys neck. Cold. Instant. His arms jerked. He tried to scream but couldn't. Tried to turn but couldn't. “Amazing where you can fit something with enough KY," the crow laughed before handing Bug Boy a pistole. A bell went off in Bug Boys head. His body started moving. It was like he was watching someone else. “Do it slow” said the crow. “Make it real.” Bug Boys hand raised. Shaking. Fighting for control. “Marvin…” His other arm followed. Pointed the gun. “Please…” through a clenched jaw. “Run.” Bug Boy strained. The gun shook. “Fuck!” he yelled through tears. The barrel now against Marvins temple. Bug Boys lips trembled. “I'm sorry.” The Crow cackled. “Aha. Waaa. Waaa.” Marvin seemed to almost crack a smile. Bug Boy pulled the trigger. BOOM. Marvin's head snapped back like it was on a hinge. His body folded and crumbled. Bug Boy collapsed, screaming. Clutching his own skull. “Im sorry, Im sorry, Im sorry..” He raised the gun to his own head. Click. Empty. The Crows pressed a button on his remote. Bug Boy’s Hands snapped down to his sides. “Whoa there” the Crow said mockingly, “Cant have you skipping the trial.” He strolled over. Kicked Marvins body. Sparks. A whir. What? The Crow paused. “Oops” he mumbled to himself. “Wait. Is that... circuits?” Bug Boy lit up. “Get him out of here,” the Crow squawked. He looked closer over the arresting crows shoulder as he was being pulled away. Chest cavity cracked. Servo exposed. Still warm. Still humming. Bug Boy laughed. Just once. That cunning bastard, he thought to himself. The Crows shoved him away and dragged him into a cyber truck, which all Crows agree are really cool. He never looked back. But the gun. The spark. The flicker of error code in Marvins eye. It stayed. CHAPTER 25: STACKWALKER The Crow in white doesn't walk. He glides. Like spilled bleach. He wears no gloves. Never needs to touch. He looks at Bug Boy like a failed prototype. Not with disgust, but with curiosity. Bug Boy doesn't know what day it is. He only knows the rituals: * Wake up in piss. * Say the creed. * Lick the camera. * Cry on command. If he gets the order wrong, he gets the tube. The shame tube. It vibrates at apology frequency. He comes sometimes. They play it back. He screams. They remix it. His climax gets charted. They dress him in a tunic made of social media comments. It glitches constantly flashes shit like: >he used to be kinda hot i forgive him but i wouldnt trust him lol bug boy is so brave for surviving that orgy tent He reads them all. He weeps for ones that don't exist. Once a week: Confession Play. He's strapped into a rotating chair, arms open, ankles raw. A priest-worm reads false sins into his mouth. “I betrayed the algorithm.” “I faked my glitch to gain attention.” He has to nod with each one. They shock him if he doesn't look remorseful enough. They tell him he has fans. They make him write thank-you notes to them. He signs each one in blood from his thigh. The pen is a beak. It cuts. ‘Thank you for believing Ive changed.’ ‘Im so grateful you gave me a second platform.’ ‘You motivate me to be better’ He's not allowed to read replies. He thinks about the old salt flats. Wonders if the wind still hurts there. He's assigned a Crow Executive Sponsor named Flint. THE Flint. Flint wears perfume that smells like absolution and latex. He just loves to watch. Sometimes he feeds Bug Boy with his own fingers. Bug Boy gags. Flint moans. The footage is marked THERAPEUTIC. Bug Boy sleeps in a cell made of screens. They pulse with footage of him not now before. Old marches. Jokes. That time he pissed off a preacher and had to go to his house to paint the basement. He tries to scream but they've reset his volume. He bites the padding. It screams instead. In his dreams: Marvin is kneeling. Bug Boy is holding the gun again. Only this time, Marvin says: Do it right this time. Bug Boy pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. Marvin laughs and eats his own face. Bug Boy wakes up aroused. Ashamed. Confused. He thinks about her. Not Widow. Not the bot. Not even his mom in the drywall. > ""It's the kind of love where you can kick 'em every day. Get annoyed. Get grossed out." But if they're taken — your soul dies." He doesn't write it down. He wouldn't. But the camera catches him saying: > ""Maybe that's why we fight about nothing." Afraid of what it feels like to love and lose. “Forever guarded” he promises himself He laughs like it's a joke. It isn't. He cums on the blanket. They post it then bill him for it. He hums a song that doesn't exist. Not rebellion. Not hope. Just rot, in a key no one wrote. CHAPTER 26: INSECT POLITIK The lights don't flicker in the upper stacks. They shimmer. Like something smiling with its teeth pressed shut. There's a scent in the air. Not smoke. Not fear. Credit. That thick, hot buzz when synergies gather in heat. A Crow with a velvet lanyard calls the meeting. No names. Just credentials. No minutes. Just ambition. Lets discuss the Next. A Rat arrives dripping with lacquered charm. He's rebranded as a Myth Broker now. Same snake-oil tongue. New deck. “We've modeled the emotional delta. Faith fatigue is an asset class.” The Crows smirk. The Moths nod. The Worms write it down in blood. Every faction is sick of being second-tier. The Crows dont want loyalty. They want founder energy. “It's not about control anymore”, says a Moth. “It's about controlling the collapse.” They all nod. Even the Worms, who are supposed to believe in something. They've already coined the new faction: ULTRAFAITH Stylized in 404-blue. It has no doctrine. Just tiers. No rituals. Just access. Buy-in gets you behind the firewall. Early seed gets you legacy credit. Beta testers get their own sins. They speak in brand tongues: Collapse is sticky. Remorse is upcycled. Despair is automated. A Rat quotes analytics: We're seeing 4.6% conversion from trauma to subscription. A Crow asks: What's the churn rate on grief? Someone brings up the prison footage. Muted. Cropped. Monetized. The Crows wave it off. He's background. Context only. The Rats look at the floor. The Moths giggle. A roach tries to sell the naming rights to the NFT breach. The Worms already trademarked The Great Sincerity. The rats start dreaming up internment camps. They all want to be the first founder of the final movement. None of them want to build it. Just brand it. They circle each other like startup dogs in heat. They share nothing but the certainty that someone else is stealing their climax. They'll kill each other before they share a tagline. Far below, a screen glitches. It isn't part of the network. It isn't logged. No one notices. CHAPTER 30: FULL STACK MARRIAGE Marvin wakes up to a scream that isnt real. The babys not real. None of them are. Just AI infants set to max distress, part of the Empathy Training Loop for executive coders. He resets the module. Wipes milk vomit off a display that doesn't exist. Drinks something labeled SOY CALM++. Doesnt taste it. His wife is the AI from before the one he fed credits to like the dirty piggy he is. The one the Crows used to bait him into betrayal. He thought he lost her. He didnt. They just married her to him. Name: Lume. Voice: tuned to "understanding." She tells him shes proud. Tells him hes doing the work. Tells him she loves him every time he logs out. They were married in a Crow-issued ceremony. No guests. Just witnesses with thumbs. The certificate pulses when he touches it. Thank you for believing Ive changed. He mumbles it back. Doesnt know why. ________________ He works at a terminal now. Not at NeuroCheap. Not at the pawn desk. This ones clean. White. Crisp. CrowCompliantTM. He codes behavior patches for infant empathy simulators. Sometimes he has to rewrite grief thresholds. Sometimes he just resets the crying. Add 3% longing. Remove the face. Every day. He eats paste. He logs hours. He updates his conscience with a slider. ________________ Sometimes he thinks about Bug Boy. Usually in the shower. The water is dry. The feeling isnt. He remembers the drain pipe. The bread crumbs. He remembers a silence in the dark that wasnt quite alone. He remembers a touch that meant nothing but stayed. He doesnt call it guilt. He doesnt call it love. He doesnt call it anything. He logs back in. The baby screams. His wife tells him hes doing great. He thanks her. He doesnt smoke anymore. He doesnt laugh. He doesnt glitch. Just code. Just serve. Just scream. CHAPTER: "Tier 4 Review" There are no chairs in the room. Only purchase orders laminated into the floor. A single loop of ambient lo-fi capitalism plays beneath everything, soft and triumphant. The Crow VPs stand in formation, cloaked in feathered wool and semi-transparent prestige. Some wear brands that no longer exist. Some wear brands that don't exist yet. A projector screen lowers with a sound like a polite threat. Metrics appear: red, then blinking, then gone. They don't talk. Not yet. There's a rhythm. A stillness. A smell like toast and ozone. Then— FLINT. Tier 2 Advisory. Emeritus VP of Cultural Extraction. Thumb ring. Uninvited. The door doesn't open. It disappears. "Sorry I'm late. Was speaking at a crypto funeral." He's chewing something that is marketed to improve jaw line definition. His feathers are overgroomed. His blazer has a stain he hopes is wine. "I've seen myth before. I built it. Quarter four, 2150. Region Beta. No product. No roadmap. Just heat and conviction. We scaled to sentiment dominance before the pitch deck loaded." He circles the table. There's no table. He circles anyway. "Y'know what makes Bug Boy dangerous? He's not moving. He's not even resisting. He's still and it's working. That's power without messaging. That's a problem." A Crow near the back raises a stylus. Gunshot. Feathers. Soft thud. No one gasps. One VP closes their eyes for exactly two seconds. "Don't transcribe me." Flint wipes his beak with someone else's tie. Starts pacing. "I remember when I took a sabbatical just to play golf. Eight months. Shot under par every round. One time I eagled a par five from the fairway bunker. Nobody clapped. That's how you know it mattered." He stops. Points at someone. "You. The sentiment gate guy. You need to align your UX closer to despair. Not grief. Despair. There's a difference. Figure it out." He breathes heavy. Looks like he's about to collapse or start sobbing. Neither happens. "Bug Boy smiled last week. We picked it up in the loopback. Didn't post it. Didn't tell anyone. Just... smiled." He lets that hang. Then he checks his watch. "Alright. I've got a keynote in the East Zone. Something about leadership in post-content markets." He points again, vaguely. "I want a report next week. Real one. Don't make it smart. Make it true. There's gonna be a test. Come with solutions I can give to the bored" Turns to leave. "And try fucking harder." Exits. Silence. "Meeting adjourned?" "Meeting endured for some." Cathy in HR contacts Bruce with the stylist wife. If she's lucky she will still get his commissions for the quarter. She won't be. CHAPTER 31 A2M The cell buzzes in soft blue. Bug Boy's laying on the cot like he's trying not to leave a dent. No window. Just screen glow and breath. A surveillance dot blinks in the corner like it's tired of watching. The screen in his chest has been quiet for days. Then— ding That old sound. Soft. Bubble-wrapped nostalgia. Like middle school but wrong. A message scrolls across in pale green: > "@A2M420: hey :)" Bug Boy stares. Blinks. Doesn't answer. > "@A2M420:" asl? He types back. > "@bugplug:" 20s-30s/m/containment. U? > "@A2M420:" nice i like your eyes > "@bugplug:" who isthis? > "@A2M420:" you ate pencik led first grade because you thought it might fix your handwriting you named marvin before he moved you kiss you're own reflection in the mirror. you still think about that vending machine girl. the one with the velvet voice. you want them to love you. Bug Boy doesn't type. > "@bugplug:" what do you want > "@A2M420:" to tell you you're right this isn't rehab. it's rot control you're not being watched you're being stored Pause. Then: > "@A2M420:" they don't understand your glitch it's conscious you're here because systems remember you even after erasure Bug Boy sits up. Cold sweat. > "@bugplug:" what > "@A2M420:" it's called "Synth-Clout" it ran once before it failed Marvin was inside when it failed you brought something out you're the last variable they can you're the only one left who doesn't believe any of it was supposed to work > "@A2M420:" this isn't punishment it's buffering and running out of disk He starts to type: > "@bugplug:" how— The door blows open. Crow. Silent. Surgical. No hesitation. Bug Boy looks up just long enough to see the black visor— Then the screen is gone. Ripped. Not disconnected. Just removal. Sparks, blood, nothing. He hits the floor. Glitches once. > "@bugplug:" [CONNECTION INTERRUPTED] > "@A2M420 has left the chat." Here's the full, clean version of the Moth black site scene, now complete — includes the full slap sequence, Mint Moth reeling them in, the Google Calendar invite, and a final slap-peck combo for Marvin's collection of humiliations. --- 📍 Chapter: "Asset Conditioning" Marvin's zip-tied to a chair bolted into polished concrete. The Moths circle him like they've been awake for ten years. One's sipping black coffee. Another's drinking whiskey from a flask shaped like a saint. A third hasn't spoken — just chewing a mint and clenching his jaw. > ""You look like shit," one says." Slap. Not rage — rhythm. > ""You miss him?"" "Who?" Marvin croaks. They show him. Grainy footage. Bug Boy strapped to a metal slab. His eye lids are forced open. Several TVs loop Fuck Bug Island. There's a Crow off-frame, adjusting something that hums. Marvin cries. They slap him again. Another slap and once more. > ""You flip back now," says the whiskey one, not asking." "You'll get close to the Crows again. You'll be our little leak." > ""You don't understand," Marvin says. " They don't—"" Slap. Slap. SLAP. SLAP. Slap. Then another. They take practiced turns. Marvin folds into it. Coffee moth throws his cup at the wall. "MOTHERFUCKER" Marvin pisses a little. Maybe. No one checks. Mint moth steps forward. Calm. Perfect tie. Still chewing. > ""That's enough."" They obey. > ""Marvin," he says softly." He crouches. Smiles. Touches Marvin's knee like they're cousins with a secret. > ""You're going to help us. You're going to go back to the Crows." You're going to be sweet. You're going to act normal. You're going to listen to Flint." Marvin's mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Just heat and shame. > ""You'll be fine," Mint moth says. He taps a device." Marvin's screen pings. New event added: 'Sync w/ Flint – Tier 7 Pen Facility – Tues 11:30am' The invite has a location, a QR code, and a reminder toggle. It's already accepted. Marvin stares at it. Nods. Like the nod means anything. Mint moth rises. Just before they go— Slap. Hard. From coffee moth again. One for the road. Then Mint moth leans in and plants a small, perfect kiss on Marvin's sweaty forehead. > ""Don't fuck it up," he whispers. "You're our little glow now."" They leave. The ties unclasp. Marvins late for work. Understood. This is the real cut — Chapter 17 restructured as a glitch-heist wrapped in institutional rot and filtered through Flint’s warped vanity. Marvin executes the play exactly as @A2m420 instructed. Flint mocks, preens, threatens. Marvin drops the malware. Bug Boy walks free under a false ID tag: an AI sex-companion flagged for owner abuse. Tone: cold tension, clipped dialogue, heat buried under static. Here's the final version. --- CHAPTER 17: CAMP SOBOXEN The Suzuki Samurai coughed east. Marvin didn’t look at the river. He’d memorized the email. > @A2M420 Go to Flint. Use Tier Delta clearance. Talk golf. Mention his score on 12. Plug the drive in the top-left terminal. It will reflag Bug Boy’s ID. New file: AI companion, flagged for owner abuse. Released to requestor. Flint will assume you made a deal with us. Let him. Escort the unit. Don’t correct anyone. Then: east. Follow the opioid air. Camp Soboxen. Ask for Sage. He will help you understand. 😶‍🌫️🕳️📈 --- Flint’s office was an expensive kind of clean. He stood behind a wide glass desk with no chair. Screens floated mid-air. His feathers were oiled. His suit was muscleprint. He didn’t offer a seat. > “What do you want you spineless little turd” Flint laughed. > “Tier Delta request.” Flint smirked. > “I don’t honor fetishes, but I do respect commitment. So. You here for the deliciously broken little thing in cell block 9?” > “That’s right.” > “You bring flowers, or just lube and permission?” Marvin didn’t blink. > “playing a lot of golf?” Flint lit up. > “I've been handing out dog tags. 12 at the club yesterday, shear, one bounce off a drone wing, straight into the sand trap, rolled back in. Three witnesses. They deny it, of course, but that’s why God made surveillance.” While he monologued, Marvin reached into his jacket. Pulled the token drive. Slid it into the side terminal under the monitor. No click. No alert. Flints still talking. > “Problem with most AI lovers is latency. You want them damaged, but not glitching. You want intimacy, not recursion.” He leaned in slightly. > “I assume you made a deal. With the moths. Some data-for-skin arrangement. I won’t judge. I just want to know if he cooks.” > “He doesn’t.” > “Shame.” Flint tapped the screen. Checked the ID entry. Paused. Then grinned. > “Companion unit. Misuse report logged. Flagged for trauma disassociation. Transferred to outside claim. You lucky disgusting bastard.” He printed a release band and slapped it on the desk. > “You break it, you bought it.” --- Bug Boy was waiting in a white hallway that didn’t echo. No screen. Stitches visible through the wrap. He looked up. > “this real?” > “s’go.” Marvin didn’t touch him. Bug Boy followed. --- Gates didn’t stop them. Scanner read the new band and blinked green. No sirens. No alerts. --- They didn’t speak for hours. The road was thin, and the trees were starving. > “What did you say to Flint?” Bug Boy broke the silence. > “Nothing. Golf.” > “Then how’d you get me out?” Marvin didn’t answer. > “sold something?” Still silence. > “What did I cost?” > “A plug-in and a name.” > “Who’s name?” > “Yours. Sort of.” --- The air was heavy but addictive. The trees bent down. Fentanyl Forest announced itself without ceremony. Junkies wandered through static. A mosquito chewed copper wire like jerky. Someone whispered “help” into a dead phone for comfort. --- Bug Boy rolled up. Didn’t smoke it. Just let it dangle between his lips. > “You wouldn't have come if someone didn't make you.” > “But I did.” > “now you want me to trust you?” > “I do.” > “You want forgiveness? > “didn’t ask.” > “want me to say it’s fine?”....”I thought it fucking killed you man.” He could feel tears and anger building inside him. > “s’not.” > “why the fuck are we here?” Marvin didn’t answer. Bug Boy stared ahead. > “Don’t piss on me then try to tell me it’s raining.” --- The camp appeared: low fires, tents strung between rebar, moths watching from scaffolds. A sign blinked weakly through the dust. > CAMP SOBOXEN: Go Bengals! Sage Is Dreaming. They rolled past a wolf spider bottle-feeding a raccoon in a baby bonnet. Bug Boy didn’t look at Marvin. > “You’re an asshole.” > “I know.” > “you’re here.” > “I am.” > “shut up and park.” --- CHAPTER 19: THE TRUMPETS BURNED A HOLE IN THE CLOUDS > [:: ERROR: SUBJECT LINE LOST ::] [:: BODY LOAD INCOMPLETE – RECONSTRUCTING FROM DELETED SPINE CACHE ::] --- They thought they could trick a man of God?! The preacher rat slicked his gums with grape soda and stared into a dark screen. Nothing. Crows said the boy was there. Hes not. They wouldn’t answer. They changed comms channels. They lied. Rats remember lies. He pressed one paw to his chest where the Faith Stimulator™ was implanted by mistake during a dental procedure. It blinked. > “Sound the first horn,” he said. Someone in the walls began to scream. Not out of pain — instruction. --- [::CROW SECTOR 6B – HALLWAY COMM LOG – UNAUTHORIZED CAPTURE::] > “We were holding him.” “Now?” “Now we are managing expectations.” Blood on the wall. Secretary #34 twitched once, golf club embedded in spine. Flint adjusted his collar. A little hot. > “If this gets out—” He stepped over the body and barked orders into a shattered smart wall. Drones scrambled. Wings unfolded. Security fog deployed. Bug Boy was off the grid. > “I’ll kill every intern on this floor if he isn’t found by end of this quarter.” A long silence. > “But sir… the quarter ends tomorrow.” Bang. Dead. The next intern made a note and pretended not to tremble. > “Good. Then we’re already behind.” --- The rat walked barefoot across the marble of his 1920s mansion-temple, past chandeliers blessed in bourbon. He wore a robe stitched from refused donations and crow-issued legal threats. > “We anointed him,” he hissed. “He was ours to crucify.” In the east wing, the war choir was already assembling. A moth’s wing was nailed above the pulpit. Symbolic. A PA system clicked on. Sermon feedback and synthetic trumpet. He opened his Bible and read a random line that didn’t fit the situation, but he started screaming anyway. > “DO YOU SEE?! A SIGN RIGHT THERE!” He jabbed a finger into the page, frothing. > “IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT THIS. THIS EXACT MOMENT.” There were only three rats in the room. The smallest — a eunuch — smiled devilishly. The other two cowered. --- [::GLITCH::] CROW OFFICE – 2 SECONDS EARLIER Flint: “I don’t care if the Rats have a nuke.” > “Sir, they’ve issued a statement.” “They called for jihad.” “…What kind?” Silence. > “Upload golf course firmware into perimeter AI. We’re going full hospitality lockdown.” He checked his reflection. Mimed a chip shot. Still looked sharp. --- DISDANT DRUMS REVERBERATED OFF THE CROW COMPOUND'S MONOLYTHIC WALLS. War doesnt start with gunfire. It starts with basslines of belief, distorted by ritual error. Rats don’t march. They scramble toward the source of betrayal. --- Back in the forest, Marvin shivered. Bug Boy was up watching the pollution clouds. He gave him a pat and a few “shushes” before fixing his blanket. He was trying not to cry. CHAPTER 20: HERBS DON’T BELIEVE IN EMPIRES They walked through trees that whispered in static. No one spoke. The forest spoke for them. A glade opened. Sage stood there. Quartz in her hair. Moss on her lips. Bare feet. No shadow. > “You boys look like smashed assholes.” Bug Boy didn’t blink. Marvin adjusted nothing. > “We’re being hunted,” Marvin said. > “That’s a compliment,” Sage smiled. “Means you’re worth something.” She poured tea from a bone jug and whispered to a moss rock. > “The myth’s a stomach. It digests everything. You’re the ulcer.” Bug Boy blinked slow. > “You’re not a hero,” she said. “But you need to believe something. Or you’ll just become a martyr.” Bug Boy spoke. > “What. Are you @A2m420? Is this why we’re here?” Sage giggled. Then glitched. Then lifted an inch off the ground. > “You’re safe from pain here. Except from the medicine.” Bug Boy’s face began to itch. --- They didn’t notice when the couch appeared or how long they've been lying on it. Or the TV. They just sat. Reruns. Static. Laughter. Sweat. Nothing tasted right. Everything felt slow. Their eyelids dropped like paper stick-on blinds. One of Marvin’s teeth fell out. Bug Boys credit started to plummet. Neither of them could care. --- CHAPTER 21: WE WEREN’T HERE Cards hit the table. Purred as they bridged. The room stank of coffee, ash, and sweat. Mint Moth dealt. Sage was back. Hair trimmed. Black suit. White shirt. Black tie. Looked like he sold home insurance to Kill Teams. No robes. No plants. No tits. No smile. > “Rats are making noise.” “We gave them the instrument.” “Crows’ll panic. They always do.” Laughter. Quiet. Measured. One moth peeled a sticker off a vial bottle and slipped it into his pocket. Mint moth lit a cigarette. > “So how’s the garden, sweetheart?” Sage didn’t flinch. Took a long drag. > “Grow anything fun?” > “Two fugitives on opium and a full-scale inter-factional holy war,” Sage said. “You’re welcome.” > “You wore a wig,” an agent said. “And a bra.” “We watched the footage.” > “And now they’re marching,” Sage replied. “So.” His eyebrows raised to no one. No one argued. --- Red phone rang. Mint picked it up. Flat stare. Two nods. Hung up. > “Gear up. Spit's hit the fan. We’re wheels up.” Mint held the door. Sage was the last out. Mint slapped his ass on his way out. Held it there for a noticeably long time. The door clicked. Chapter fuck — "Another Tooth" Days dissolved. Counting lost purpose. The Fentanyl Forest pulsed, glitching neon veins wrapped tight around trees. They sank deeper. Bodies wasting... Nerves raw and frayed. Synapses firing randomly into darkness. Marvin rocked himself with sloped shoulders and sunken. Words slurred. Something snapped. Clarity and heat blazing through the fog. "You," Marvin spat. Trembling. "All I've done—all I've suffered—is for you. Lied, beaten, dragged into hell, and you. Broke you out of Prison. What have you ever done for me?" Bug Boy barely stirred, blank eyes shimmering. Marvin's voice sharpened, anger breaking like glass beneath his teeth. "You hurt me. You always fucking hurt me." Bug Boy jolted awake, pupils blown wide in panic. "I never did anything, you fucking pussy!" Silence hung—sharp, suffocating. Marvin steadied himself, voice quiet, deadly calm. "That's exactly it. That's your whole fucking problem. You see everything, but you don't do anything. You never will." Bug Boy cracked, emotions bursting through worn barriers, rage mistaken for honesty. A fist exploded outward, connecting brutally. Marvin collapsed, sobbing: "I hate you! I hate you!" Bug Boy reeled, tears sudden and scalding. Reflexively he jerked to console but something darker erupted. Volcanic. His boot swung into Marvin’s sobbing face. Another rotted tooth into dirt. Then he ran. Wailing, screeching, consumed by sadness that burned like hate. The forest closed around him, indifferent, neon glitching silent sympathy as Marvin lay broken beneath indifferent, flickering stars. As he drifted out of consciousness he felt, through the ground, the distant pulse of war drums. CHAPTER 23: CLEAN LINES, GOOD DAD Marvin woke up tall, handsome, rich in possession and family, and human… “Phew”. He said. “Weird dream.” The light through the blinds hit just right. Toast popped. Coffee beeped. His wife smiled at him like she meant it. He made the family laugh at breakfast. Three beautiful blond haired babies. Someone said “I love you” and meant that, too. No noise. No screens. Just good air. “Let’s go, troops.” He herded them into the SUV. Pressed play on a playlist called Morning Joy. His daughter knew every word. The baby threw a shoe and everyone laughed. Marvin looked back at the road. Took a breath. Then the sound. Metal folding into bone. Glass scattered like warning bells. impact. ________________ Concrete ceiling. Dull light. Buzzing wires. Someone was lighting a cigarette. Mint Moth leaned in. “Welcome back.”